Napster started filtering songs on the RIAA’s copyright list, as promised, at about 10PM on Sunday. However, as reported by InfoWorld, the filtering only works on exact correct spellings. In a quick search I found over 200 Metallica songs available, albeit with slightly misspelled artist or song titles…
There’s already evidence that users have picked up on this and are deliberately misspelling their filenames, not to mention that Napster users were never English teachers to begin with.
I’m sure the RIAA won’t be amused by all of this. Napster isn’t honoring copyright – they’re just sending their application even further down the usability scale.
Why can’t Napster just admit it? Their service exists to allow the copying of copyrighted material. If you take that away, it’s useless. Their solution is to eventually charge subscription fees, but if the record companies wanted their material available for a fee they would provide it themselves… and I’m sure they will, but not until Napster is a fading memory.